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Audrey Brown
"I come to call down my destiny - and it is tall and dangerous!" Audrey Scuttle (née Brown) is the main protagonist of The Deptford Mice trilogy. She is the daughter of Albert and Gwen Brown, and the sister of Arthur Brown. She was born on the 3rd of January in the Skirtings. Appearance Audrey is a beautiful brown house mouse. Her features are delicate, and have been described as elfin. She has large brown eyes and a long nose tapering down to a tiny mouth. As a child, Audrey enjoyed dressing in lace and especially loved a pair of silver bells which Twit had given her that she wore on her tail. Usually she would have a pink ribbon tied into her hair in such a way that it appeared to be sprouting like a plant. Since becoming the Starwife, however, she has stopped wearing these things. This is likely because they are worldly vanities. Personality Audrey is very headstrong, brave and courageous. She has a fiery personality, and is often outspoken. If she dislikes someone, she will make no secret of it, and is apt to say things she may regret later if she changes her opinion of them. She also tends to daydream, which makes it hard for her family and friends to believe her when she tells them about her real encounters with the Green Mouse. Role in The Dark Portal We meet Audrey on the morning of the Great Spring Celebration. It is the year she and her brother will receive their mousebrasses, but she is preoccupied with thoughts of her father, who has been missing for a whole day and night. She doesn't understand why he's not there for such an important occasion, but believes he will show up eventually. It angers her when anyone suggests that he could in fact be dead. Audrey, fully expecting her father to appear, decides to enjoy her day in the meantime. Twit bashfully approaches her and gives her two silver bells from Master Oldnose's Green Mouse finery. She is delighted with them and puts them on her tail. After Audrey takes part in some of the festivities, it is time for the giving of the brasses. Arthur goes first and receives The Sign of Family, the same as their father. As Audrey enters the Chamber of Winter, the once-harmless decorations somehow take on a life of their own and menace her. The terrors of winter become frighteningly real to her. Escaping into the Chamber of Spring, Audrey finds herself in a beautiful land of growing things. Approaching and rolling away the decorative golden sun, she briefly sees a bewildered Master Oldnose before he disappears and in his place is the Green Mouse himself. Audrey falls to her knees at the sight of him, and he offers her a mousebrass. Frightened, Audrey refuses to take it at first, but suddenly she hears the voice of her father telling her to do as she is bid. She looks around, wondering where he is, but cannot find him. He promises she will see him before the end, and she takes the mousebrass from the Green Mouse. Suddenly it is all over and Audrey is back in the Chamber of Summer as it normally appears with Master Oldnose. He says he doesn't remember putting the brass Audrey is holding in his bag. It is The Anti-Cat Charm. Outside, Audrey's mother compliments her on her new mousebrass, and Mrs. Chitter remarks that she hasn't seen one like it for a long time, and that it isn't very useful as there are no cats in the area. Keeping her voice casual, Audrey asks Mrs. Chitter about the fortune telling rat she had been talking about previously, Madame Akkikuyu. She says that she heard she was in the garden the night before, and is by now probably off to her next stop through the sewers. This led her into the sewers where she confronted Jupiter at his altar. She threw the mousebrass at the evil cat god and he was sent to his doom. Role in The Crystal Prison Later, she was forced by the Starwife to accompany the rat Madame Akkikuyu to Fennywolde. After Hodge, Young Whortle and Jenkin were mysteriously murdered, the fieldmice pointed their fingers at Audrey, thinking that she had killed them. They were convinced she was a witch and were about to hang her, but Twit invoked the Gallow's Law and married her in order to save her. Role in The Final Reckoning Audrey then returned to the Skirtings, leaving her husband behind. When the Starwife came to the Skirtings, she chose Audrey to succeed her. This was a destiny that the mouse refused at first, tossing the silver acorn pendant down the cellar steps in anger. After the Starwife had died and her body was burned in a pyre, Audrey found a snowdrop flower in the ashes. It was this she used to defeat the spirit of Jupiter once and for all. Then, after digging through the cellar, she found the silver acorn and took it up to the observatory hill to become the new Starwife. Role in The Deptford Mice Almanack Ten years after the fall of Jupiter, Audrey charges the red squirrel artist Gervase Archibald Brightkin with the creation of an almanack. Within he was told to set down every date and festival of the slightest significance in the calendar so future generations would not forget them. Though Gervase initially believed that only the days of the squirrel year would be needed, Audrey commanded that all folk be represented. To aid him in his work, Audrey sent Gervase to Fennywolde and Holeborn to interview Arthur and Twit. Throughout the year, it becomes clear that there is unrest among Audrey's grey squirrel subjects. They resent her as she is not a squirrel, but 'merely' a mouse. This all comes to a head when the Great Oak (in which Hobb was imprisoned in ages past) falls in a heavy rainstorm. It's believed that it is Audrey's fault. Then a pair of black squirrels arrive in Greenwich. It is a shock as that noble race was said to have died with the old Starwife. It is an older male squirrel named Modequai, and his beautiful-yet-aloof daughter Morella. When they first arrive, Modequai has an audience with Audrey and demands that the Starwifeship be given to his daughter, but she refuses him. However, seeing Morella as the perfect replacement for Audrey, the grey squirrels begin to plan a revolt. Eventually they barge into the Starwife's chamber, tear the Silver Acorn from Audrey's neck, and chase her off by shooting arrows and pelting her with empty acorn cups - the ultimate insult. What became of Audrey after that is currently unknown. Relationships Arthur Brown Audrey is very close to her brother, although they are quite different, and at times he will call her out for her rude behaviour toward others. Arthur offers to accompany her to Fennywolde with Akkikuyu to see that she settles in. When she is falsely accused of witchcraft there, he (alongside Mr. Woodruffe and Twit) is very vocal in preventing her from being hanged. Piccadilly When Audrey and Piccadilly first encountered each other in the sewers of Deptford, it proved to be a very awkward meeting. He was forced to explain to her that he had escaped with his life from Jupiter and Morgan whilst her father did not survive. As Audrey did not believe her father to be dead at the time, she refused to believe what Piccadilly was telling her and called him a coward. Eventually, however, Audrey regretted her treatment of Piccadilly and grew to love him. He had always loved her from the very beginning, though neither could ever bring themselves to admit their feelings for one another. The Starwife Initially Audrey hated the Starwife, seeing her as a rude old battleax. In exchange for curing the deathly ill Oswald, the old squirrel forced Audrey to take Madame Akkikuyu to the country and live with the rat until her death. After Akkikuyu died and Audrey returned to the Skirtings, the Starwife showed up there with a desire to speak to the bats. Her realm having been destroyed by the spirit of Jupiter, the squirrel queen ended up staying at the old house in Deptford. Still resenting the Starwife for what she did, Audrey was initially cold when dealing with her and they got into arguments multiple times. However, she began to pity the old squirrel. After the girl asked whether she missed her people, the Starwife told Audrey she did, but not the grey squirrels who were her servants. She revealed that she was in fact the last of the noble race of black squirrels, and doubted if she would pass her title to anyone since she could find no trace of her kind. Though their relationship was still rather tense, the Starwife liked the spunk she saw in Audrey, and began to consider the mouse as her possible successor. When Thomas and Arthur returned from a confrontation with Jupiter's army, the former's leg having been pierced by a magical ice spear, the Starwife recommends that he be finished off to spare him any further pain. Everyone is outraged at this suggestion, and Audrey somehow is able to read the Starwife's mind, discovering that the old squirrel has the power to heal Thomas but will not do it. After a private heated argument, the Starwife agrees to heal Thomas, but on one condition... that Audrey help her with the spell. Sensing an ulterior motive, Audrey agrees but remains suspicious of the old squirrel. As instructed, she holds the Starwife's silver acorn over Thomas's frozen body. At one point, it looks like the magic is killing him, and thinking that was the Starwife's plan, Audrey attempts to throw the charm away. The squirrel prevents her from doing so, and as it turns out, Thomas was healed after all. Feeling guilty, Audrey goes to apologise to the Starwife, planning to return her silver acorn to her. But the Starwife refuses, saying that the pendant now belongs to Audrey. The mouse doesn't understand, but then realises that while the Starwife was casting her spell to heal Thomas, simultaneously a ritual was being performed that transferred her powers to the girl. Angry at being manipulated once again, Audrey refuses the Starwifeship and throws the silver acorn down the cellar steps in a fit of rage. Meanwhile, the Starwife goes out into the garden and ritually freezes herself to death amid the falling snow. When her body is discovered, Thomas performs the funeral ceremony she requested, burning her body on a pyre. Oddly enough, Audrey knows the words spoken at squirrel funerals, though she has never heard them before. The powers of the Starwife continue to manifest themselves within Audrey. When the mice of the old empty house in Deptford are forced to flee through the sewers from Jupiter's spectral army, Audrey is compelled by a voice in her head to turn back and go to the garden. Though others try to stop her, she makes her way through the crowd. back up the cellar steps, and into the yard. There, on the Starwife's pyre, she finds a snowdrop flower and picks it. In the end, it is this that Audrey uses to defeat the spirit of Jupiter and banish him forever. In the weeks afterward, Audrey accompanied her brother and some of the other mice back to the house in Deptford to see if anything could be salvaged. But the damage inflicted by Jupiter's army could not be repaired. As everyone else was tutting at the damage, Audrey slipped into the cellar and found the discarded silver acorn. One starry night in May, Audrey took leave of her family and made her way to the abandoned chambers of the Starwife in Greenwich Park. There she finally accepted the Starwifeship. Etymology Audrey is the Anglo-Norman form of the Anglo-Saxon name Æðelþryð, composed of the elements æðel "noble" and þryð "strength". The Anglo-Norman form of the name was applied to Saint Audrey (d. 679), also known by the historical form of her name as Saint Æthelthryth. In the 17th century, the name of Saint Audrey gave rise to the adjective tawdry "cheap and pretentious; cheaply adorned" (after a fair of St. Audrey where cheap lace was sold). Gallery Category:Mice Category:Starwives Category:The Dark Portal characters Category:The Crystal Prison characters Category:The Final Reckoning characters Category:The Deptford Mice Almanack characters Category:Protagonists Category:House mice Category:Females